Our Catholic church has a mission to feed the world. People hunger for God’s truth and love – the basis of our human dignity. When you have God’s truth and love, you have a deepening commitment to feed the body and soul of every human being, starting with your own family.
But this spiritual commitment does not end with our own family. God’s true love expands and is committed to helping the parish family, our Archdiocese and our mission in San Felix, Venezuela, through the Catholic Service Appeal. This Mission Appeal Sunday we are also expanding our love to the Church in Ghana, Africa.
Each of us who gather and pray at Mass is building up and expanding the family of faith with God as our Father, and with Mary, our spiritual Mother. When there is love and re-spect for God the Father and the Blessed Virgin Mary, there is an expanding love for their Son, Jesus Christ, the living bread from heaven, and for every child of God.
Jesus says, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me…I am the bread of life…; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.” As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, receiving Holy Communion helps us to avoid “mortal sin.”
When we receive the Holy Eucharist worthily, practicing our Catholic faith, we will be able to stay committed to God’s mission of feeding the world and reaching out to those who are materially or spiritually poor.
Ideally, one’s own family begins with a man and woman uniting themselves to God and one another for life in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. We know that when a man and a woman commit themselves to God their love expands to bring forth children, biologically and spiritually.
I thank those parents who are helping their children come up for a blessing or for Holy Communion with reverence and love for Jesus Christ – the Living Bread from heaven – of which Christ deserves and enjoys. For then Christ can enter more deeply into their souls and form their consciences with God’s love and truth. Parents, continue to share with your children how happy you are that they pray for you and their family daily, and how practicing the faith gives witness to other families to grow in God’s mission of salvation.
At last week’s Catholic Vacation Bible Camp, and Extreme Faith Camp in Trego, Wisconsin, holy water was used to remind those who bless themselves of their Baptism into Jesus Christ and his mission. However, I need to remind parents and all adults to make sure their children’s hands are clean, and that they are dressed appropriately for Sunday Mass.
The two kneelers near the front of the Church reminded an elderly parishioner that it looked like a wedding was about to happen. Indeed, The Lord Jesus Christ has wedded himself to our souls through his bride the Church, by virtue of our Baptism, and so when we come to Holy Mass we celebrate our growing mystical union with God. Hopefully we can receive our Eucharistic Lord to draw us closer to that perfect union which await us in heaven – the divine Liturgy that Jesus refers to as the “wedding banquet.”
Those who dress up for a wedding realize the honor this bestows upon the wedding party. How much more do we want to dress our soul with good works and dress up our body to receive our Eucharistic Lord at Solemn Masses, which includes every Sunday Mass, and Masses such as the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, August 15, which is a day of holy obligation. Practicing Catholics can either receive the Sacred Host on the tongue or receive the Lord in one’s hands that make a throne near the heart for the King of the Universe. Our preparation prior to and bodily gestures during Mass help us to concentrate on who we are receiving more deeply into our soul, and how it motivates us to serve and pray for those in need.
With Jesus Christ, the Living Bread from heaven, we can expand our hearts and the mission of God’s love and truth to a hungry world that desires to see more clearly the dignity of themselves in light of the supreme dignity and divine love of God.
Peace in Christ through Mary,
Fr. Thomas McCabe
Opmerkingen